


yawning 'cause we stayed up all night (ain't got time to be tired)

by brokendevil



Series: prompts, one-shots and other drabbles [10]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Just as a trigger warning, Lincoln dies, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 16:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17963789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokendevil/pseuds/brokendevil
Summary: The music starts up just as Clarke is settling down to watch one of her many serial killer documentaries and she throws her head back dramatically. It’s Saturday night and she’s finished her shift at the bookstore and she just wants to relax with a little bit of murder and conspiracy theory in the safety of her New York apartment.orLexa isn't the best neighbour in the world and Clarke is a fun person, okay?





	yawning 'cause we stayed up all night (ain't got time to be tired)

**Author's Note:**

> This, honestly, shouldn't be taken TOO seriously. It's just a little thing I wrote today to try and get me back into the writing game. Also I didn't want Lincoln to die but I was halfway through and it happened and I'm sorry!
> 
> Please enjoy anyway. Let me know what you think in a comment or on my Tumblr: brokendevilwrites. 
> 
> As always, unedited is the best way. I'll get back to any and all mistakes eventually.

**I.**

Clarke likes to think of herself as a _fun_ person.

She likes drawing and music and getting little shots of alcohol called silly names like ‘slippery nipple’ and ‘hot damn’. Her mom would call her impulsive and her father artistic and she’s passionate and headstrong and she’s the one friend in the group who will make the tough decisions when nobody else wants to.

She’s _fun._

And, you know, she completely understands that other people are fun too. Finn is fun and exciting and impulsive and Octavia is fun and scary and mean.

And her neighbour.

Well -- her neighbour is loud and musical and funny, apparently, if the laughter that rattles her walls in the early mornings is any indication.

Which is, well, a little _less fun._

“Lighten up,” is what she gets from an aggressively attractive woman when Clarke finally has enough. She has an exam in the morning and even though she’s been ready for it for _weeks_ that doesn’t mean she’s willing to be unprepared for it. “It’s a Thursday night and we’re trying to let loose. Do you even know what it means to have fun?”

Clarke’s eye twitches at the mockery because she knows how to have a good time but she has responsibilities and people are counting on her and not everyone enjoys parties that last until the early hours.

“Just keep it down.”

“Buy earplugs.”

And with that the door shuts in her face. Clarke is sure it was supposed to slam but the noise from the apartment muffles it and she growls in frustration, kicking at the bottom of the wood before storming back into her own apartment.

* * *

The noise stops twenty minutes later and Clarke passes her exam with flying colors but that isn’t the point.

* * *

“Why don’t you just put in a noise complaint to Bellamy?”

Clarke stares at Raven likes she’s an idiot because as kind hearted and as good meaning as Bellamy is; he’s not going to kick out a paying tenant just because Clarke doesn’t like that she has parties three nights a week. Her neighbour seems to go quiet at the beginning of the week and on Sunday’s Clarke has the best night's sleep of the week because there seems to be zero noise from next door at all.

It’s just the other nights that annoy her.

“No, you’re right, Bellamy won’t do anything,” her friend concedes and she wraps her lips around her straw as she drinks her Bloody Mary deep in thought. It’s barely noon but Clarke has never really had any control over her friends and, honestly, they’re all grown ass adults. If Raven wants to drink alcohol before noon through a neon paper straw, who is she to stop her? “Want me to set something up so her electricity cuts off at eleven every night? It’ll fill my evenings now Wick has gone.”

Part of Clarke feels bad because Raven and Wick had been together for so long and one day Raven woke up to an empty apartment and a note proclaiming he needed to find himself in Thailand and Cambodia. He proceeded to fill Instagram with pictures of elephants and no indication of breaking her best friends heart.

And here she was complaining about a neighbour she has never met.

“How are you doing with that whole thing?”

“Not bad,” Raven nods and they go quiet as the waitress places their food on the table with a smile. Clarke goes dizzy at the scent of her perfume and tanned skin. Maybe it’s been a while but she shakes herself out of it, thanking the woman as she moves away, and she ignores how Raven’s eyes have lit up in amusement. “I’ve stopped dreaming about him being trampled to death by elephants and left in a forest somewhere, which is good. It’s migrated more to him heading down the river in a small boat to oblivion but I’m going to take my progress as it comes.”

Clarke raises her hand for a high five and she laughs as her hand is enthusiastically slapped backwards.

See.

_Fun._

* * *

The music starts up just as Clarke is settling down to watch one of her many serial killer documentaries and she throws her head back dramatically. It’s Saturday night and she’s finished her shift at the bookstore and she just wants to relax with a little bit of murder and conspiracy theory in the safety of her New York apartment.

Part of what she hates most is she’s only ever gotten brief glimpses of her neighbour but she’s never actually spoken to the woman. Each time that she goes past the apartment there are different people coming in and out; male, female, young, old. It doesn’t matter.

For a long time Clarke wondered if her elusive neighbour was some high end escort with a varied clientele but when she asked Bellamy he just laughed and shook his head.

Growling she whips her phone out and highlights her best friends number.

 **CLARKE [11:53pm]:** Just what would cutting their electricity off do exactly?

* * *

It doesn’t seem safe.

This whole thing seems completely, and utterly, unsafe.

But she just wants to sleep more than four hours on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

**II.**

College is on a break and Clarke revels in being able to spend a little time doing absolutely nothing. Her professors are more than happy with her progress and she knows she can spare a few days to just catch up spending some quality time with herself.

Her plan includes, but is not limited to, buying a quart of ice-cream and a new blanket and settling down on her couch with zero worries about her calorie intake.

“Please come,” Octavia begs down the phone and Clarke grimaces at the thought of having to leave her cocoon. She’s only wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a tank and she can’t remember when she last washed her hair; leaving the apartment seems more effort than it’s worth. “I need you and Raven there, Griffin.”

Clarke huffs and it just ends with her bag of chips slipping off of her blanket and onto the floor. “You literally don’t,” she complains and there’s noise on the other end of the phone that reminds Clarke just how busy her friend probably is and how she probably doesn’t have time for Clarke’s whining. “You played a gig last night without us. Why is this one special?”

“Because I’m,” Octavia says something else and Clarke grunts at not being able to hear her which only furthers Octavia’s frustration. “I’m playing the song I wrote tonight. You know about…”

Clarke freezes.

She’s singing about Lincoln.

_God._

“Oh my God, Octavia, I’m such an asshole,” she rushes out and she hears a soft, sad, wet laugh on the other end of the phone and if the world could end right this second it wouldn’t be soon enough. “We’ll be there. I’ll be there. Give me an hour.”

Octavia is quiet but she replies. “It starts at seven, you have time.”

“I’ll be there at five.”

Clarke is in her shower and pondering over her outfit choices when she hears the voices in the apartment next door get a little louder and the music turn on.

She can’t even pretend to get mad and when she gets out of the warm water she acts like her eyes are red because of the shampoo that slipped from her hair.

* * *

Considering the price she pays for her apartment Clarke thinks there should be more than one working elevator at a time. But, it turns out, her rent doesn’t account for the other two elevators that constantly break and the last time she brought it up to Bellamy he just handed her a toolbox and told her to have fun.

Taking the stairs isn’t an option because her heels are already hurting and the skirt she’s wearing is that little bit too tight. The last thing she wants to do is give anyone three or less floors down a nice shot up her thighs so she waits as patiently as she can.

Patiently as she can being jabbing her finger into the button as quickly as she physically is able.

The elevator starts to climb just as she hears a door closing behind her but she’s busy texting Raven and she pays the noise no mind, even as the doors open and she walks inside the empty cubicle. Distractedly she presses the button and barely notices as someone walks into her space, the only real sign of anyone being there is the expensive smell of perfume and a warm presence next to her.

“You’re my neighbour,” a voice says and Clarke turns her head to the noise, eyes widening at the woman next to her. A lean figure is hugged by a tight, black dress and her eyes fall down to the gold heels that force the girl another six inches higher. She’s fucking beautiful and Clarke has to physically stop herself from moaning at the image presented in front of her. “Claire, right?”

“Clarke.”

“Gesundheit,” the woman says and Clarke wonders if she thought that was funny when a smile spreads over pink lips. “I live next door. Apartment 7C.”

Suddenly it doesn’t matter how attractive the woman is or how comfortable her face looks, Clarke is mad.

Like really mad.

“You’re an asshole, 7C.”

For a few seconds the girl looks taken aback, almost like nobody has ever said those words to her, and she scoffs. “You’re calling me an asshole and you don’t have the courtesy of calling me by my name.”

“I don’t know your name.”

“You didn’t ask. Can’t believe you think _I’m_ the asshole, Claudia,” the woman glares and the names only furthers Clarke’s irritation of the woman. The doors open on the floor and the brunettes walks out without a second look back, her footsteps harsh and aggressive as she walks away.

Clarke would stomp after her but she’s too busy glaring at the retreating figure that the doors close on her.

Fuck.

* * *

Octavia does amazingly well considering her circumstances. Applause ripples through the audience once she’s finished singing her song and it only gets louder when she mentions who it is about and why.

Clarke claps harder the quicker her tears fall and she feels Raven wrap her arms around her, soft lips pressing against her cheekbone in a strong kiss, and she lets herself lean back into her best friend.

On the stage Octavia beams brightly and Clarke is in awe of how strong her friend is, how tough and resilient and she cheers harder and louder and feels her voice give out.

* * *

“Clarice,” echoes around the bathroom as the door opens and Clarke looks up from washing her hands to see her neighbour walk into the empty room with purposeful steps. “I didn’t think you’d be here. I always thought you were allergic to noise.”

At that wild insinuation Clarke scoffs. She isn’t in the mood to deal with her neighbour right now. Not when her eyes are puffy and her hands are shaking and the only time they’ve ever spoken is to call one another an asshole. “You don’t even know my name. Why would you assume you know anything about me?”

“I’m going off of the clues you give me,” the woman shrugs and she pulls out a well loved stick of eyeliner and leans closer to the mirror. “And the footprint at the bottom of my door that matches your shoe size is Exhibit A.”

“It was almost two in the morning. I had an exam.”

“And I had friends over.”

Clarke sighs in irritation and pulls a paper towel out aggressively. As she wipes her hands she lets herself look at her neighbour and blinks a few times. While Clarke eyes are puffy and red, hers look empty and sad, and a thought strikes her. “Do you know the band playing?”

“I’m not a fan” she replies and it sounds like she’s putting all of her effort into replying to Clarke, like even the thought of speaking to her is difficult. Clarke notes how she avoids the question with ease. “I was asked to come tonight.”

“By who?”

“Does it matter?”

The woman finishes her eyeliner and her eyes are striking again rather than empty and Clarke contemplates _asking._ She can’t though and she sighs, shaking her head. “My friend, Octavia, she’s the singer.”

“Oh,” she answers and caps her eyeliner before throwing it back in her bag. “I knew Lincoln. He was my best friend.”

“I --”

“See you around, Clementine.”

**III.**

After the incident in the elevator and the following talk in the bathroom all noise next door had calmed down considerably. 7C was still loud but it wasn’t as obnoxious as before and most noise seemed to stop as time rolled over towards the one a.m mark. She wanted to know about the stranger, about how she’d known Lincoln and why their paths had never crossed but that night wasn’t the night to start asking Octavia and when she’d brought it up to Raven the girl had shrugged.

Truth was she wanted to know more about 7C.

There had to be more than wrong names and barbed comments and dark, dark eyeliner surrounding light eyes.

Surely she was more than parties until the early morning and pouted lips and a walk that could make a grown man cower.

Maybe she could go around and offer a cup of sugar or something. Didn’t people bake muffins for their neighbours? Honestly Clarke didn’t even know if her oven worked correctly but it couldn’t be that hard.

She was halfway through Googling just what exactly went into muffins when the door to her apartment opens  and Raven flounces in, her tool belt clattering onto her kitchen counter as she grins triumphantly. Her hair’s a mess and Clarke narrows her eyes at her friend, wondering if she should tell her about the graze next to her lips.

“Tell me how amazing I am.”

“No.”

“Louder, for those in the back.”

“No!”

Raven glares but her grin doesn't get any less bright and Clarke giggles as her friend runs over, vaulting over the back of her couch with a lot more precision than a girl with a prosthetic leg was thought to have, and lands with a thump next to her friend. The bounce causes Clarke’s phone to drop out of her hand and she watches it fall to the floor, her stomach in her ass the entire time.

Strange, she thinks, how breaking her phone was a lot scarier than anything else in her life.

She really needed to get out more.

“Muffins?” Raven laughs as she picks her phone up from the floor for her, eyes glancing at the screen. There’s nothing broken and Clarke thanks every deity she was taught about in school. “Just go to Jasper’s. They have the best muffins this side of fifth.”

“I’m not spending thirty dollars on muffins for my neighbour.”

Raven pauses scrolling through random recipes and sits up, confusion etching across her face with each passing second. Clarke only feels slightly uncomfortable under the scrutiny so she takes the opportunity to take her phone back, locking the screen like that will hide her indiscretion.

“I thought we hated your neighbour.”

“We do.”

“I’m your best friend and you’ve never baked me anything in my entire life. We’ve celebrated ten birthdays together,” Raven rants and Clarke laughs at her dramatics. “If I knew that all I had to do to get muffins out of you was to make you hate me I’d have tried a lot harder in high school.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and sits back in the comfortable cushions of her red couch. It’s her favourite things in the world, large and comfortable and covered in far too many blankets and pillows. Her entire apartment is designed around it and she huddles into the comfort as she avoids her friends deep eyes.

“I just think we got off onto the wrong foot.”

Raven’s eyes narrow further and she feels like she’s in trouble. “Is this because you had that conversation in the bathroom? I mean, I agree,  it’s weird she was close to Lincoln and everything but just because we all knew the guy doesn’t give her a free pass to be a Grade A Twat every weekend.”

“Don’t say that word, it’s awful.”

“You liked it when Emma Stone said it in Easy A.”

Clarke shrugs. “I like Emma Stone.”

“Stop being gay for a second and let’s focus on the facts,” Raven laughs and Clarke pulls her legs up onto the couch, cuddling into herself, and Raven settles next to her. “She’s an asshole. She plays music all night with no regard for you, your sleeping schedule or your other neighbours. She calls you every single name in the world except for your own. Which, by the way, is very _Scrubs_ of her. And she’s yet to say one single nice thing to you since you’ve met.”

“All true.”

“And you want to give her muffins?”

“...Well. When you say it like that.”

There’s laughter from her friend and Clarke kicks out, her foot hitting her best friends thigh, and she shakes her head at herself. Maybe she was getting ahead of herself. Maybe it has been too long since she’s spoken to an attractive girl, or guy, and she’s kind of a sucker for a pretty girl with green eyes looking sad in a dirty bar bathroom.

Which, okay, is oddly specific.

But still.

* * *

Raven sleeps over that night. They change into pyjamas and spread out pillows and duvets and blankets all over the floor and couch. There’s popcorn warming in the kitchen and the house smells like happiness and friendship and --

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Bass ripples through the apartment from next door and Raven turns so quickly that Clarke actually raises her hands to catch her head, terrified it’s going to twist off of her body.

There’s cheering and a loud bang which Clarke is sure sounds expensive.

The clock reads 10:04pm and she braces herself for the next few hours listening to all different types of music and loud laughter and chatter from the apartment next door.

“Raven, chill. We’ll just turn our TV up. She’s not been as bad with it recently; they’re usually quiet by midnight.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

Before Clarke can react Raven is up and out of the door and she wonders how a girl in Iron Man pyjama shorts and an old high school t-shirt can look intimidating but she does and she quickly runs to join her, standing at the door as Raven pounds on the wood hard.

The door opens and the same annoyingly attractive woman opens it, eyes narrowed. “Do you mind?”

“Do I--” Raven stutters and Clarke calculates there is no way she’s going to make it to Raven before the girl jumps on the other woman like a Banshee. “Shut your music up. Are you kidding me? You’re not the only insanely attractive people in this apartment block and _some of us_ want to go to sleep.”

Clarke ignores that they were going to spend the night watching movies and getting a little too tipsy off of wine but semantics.

“And _some of us_ have a social life that we’re trying to enjoy so if you’re finished…” The door looks close to closing and Raven snaps, her hand slamming up against the door. Clarke, from her position, can’t hear what is being said but Raven leans in close and the other girl tries to not look like her last rites are being whispered down her ear. When Raven pulls away she scoffs and the door slams.

“What did you say to her?”

“Stuff,” Raven smiles.

Ten minutes later the music quietens down but the voices remain and that’s as good as it’s going to get.

“I cannot wait until the part I need arrives and we can go ahead with fucking up their electrics.”

Clarke, half-asleep and full of cookie dough, sits up quickly.

Oh, fuck.

She forgot about that.

* * *

“Who was that girl in your apartment the other night?”

Clarke turns to see 7C next to her. She looks stunning in a black pencil skirt and ruffled white blouse and Clarke’s eyes widen when she notices the woman isn’t wearing a bra.

She should probably let her know the air conditioning works really well on this floor.

Because.

Well.

_Nipples._

“Raven?”

“I don’t know her name. I just know that she pissed off my cousin and I drew the short straw,” she shrugs and Clarke looks away from her chest to look at the floor instead, a smirk on her lips. “The music wasn’t that loud.”

“It shook the poster from my wall.”

7C shrugs again and bites at the inside of her bottom lip, stepping forward as the elevator doors open. “Have you ever thought about moving your poster, Cleo?”

Clarke seethes and watches the metallic doors close.

* * *

 **CLARKE: [11:04am]:** Plan A is on. Fuck the muffins.

**IV.**

Her neck hurts.

Octavia, being as helpful as always, easily followed through when Clarke finally grew the balls to ask who her neighbour was and how she knew Lincoln.

Their conversation an hour ago had ended with Clarke staring up at a billboard, her neighbours face looking back at her.

“She’s a model.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s famous.”

Octavia shrugs, lifting her donut to her mouth and chewing slowly. “I mean, she isn’t on everyone's lips at the moment but she’s big enough to be up there. Lincoln used to say people in the industry would ask for her though so she must be well known in her own circles.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“Did you ever meet any of your ex's friends?” Octavia counters and it’s not a huge stretch to think that their friendship circles never interlinked. “I mean, he spoke about her a lot and I know they were close but we were both always so busy that when we spent time together we were usually alone.”

Clarke smiles sadly and looks away from the huge billboard above the street and turns to her friend. “I miss him too, you know?”

“Thank you for coming the other night,” Octavia says instead of replying and Clarke can see how the hurt behind her eyes is fading slowly. She remembers looking into the mirror days and weeks and years after her dad died and wondering if she’d ever look the same again but she knows it takes time and patience and love. Octavia is getting there; she’s shuttered now and she angers quickly, but she’s getting there. “It really meant a lot to me.”

“Did you invite her too?”

Octavia nods, sort of cognizant that the question would come up eventually. “She was his best friend. I might have never met her but it was the song I wrote for him and I thought she might like to be there,” she explains and Clarke doesn’t really need an explanation but it’s nice to hear Octavia actually talking about Lincoln rather than ignoring the world around her. “I messaged her on Facebook so I didn’t even make the connection she was your neighbour.”

“She’s kind of awful.”

“Oh, Lincoln would say that too,” Octavia smiles and Clarke lets her wrap her arm through her own, their bodies leaning into one another. “But if he could see the good in her then it has to be there somewhere, right?”

Clarke looks back up to the poster and narrows her eyes.

“Right.”

* * *

Raven sits excitedly in her apartment on a Friday night, her eager little eyes focusing on the screen in front of her, and Clarke watches warily.

She’s pretty sure this whole thing is illegal but she just wants to sleep and her neighbour-- _Lexa_ she remembers from the huge poster--kind of has this coming.

The music next door starts and Raven lights up like Time Square. “Show time!”

Raven presses something on the screen and it seems to take a few seconds but, after the short wait, the music next door turns off and there’s a loud shout of complaint from several people. Clarke looks at her friend because _goddamn_ it worked, Raven’s stupid little set up worked, and she’s ready to jump up and hug her when suddenly all the lights in her apartment go off too.

“Oh, wait,” Raven says just as the fire alarms begin blaring. “Uh.”

Sometimes Clarke wishes she was a little less _fun._

* * *

The air is bitter as the occupants of the building huddle outside. People are in various states of undress and Clarke is glad for her college sweats and plain t-shirt; sure she looks kind of homeless but her bare legs are covered and she isn’t shivering like a lot of other people.

There’s a few firemen waiting around as others go inside to check the building and Bellamy looks close to ripping his hair out with stress, which Clarke would laugh about with Raven if she was still around. As soon as they trudged down the stairwell though Raven had disappeared down a Fire Escape and escaped into the night like the little rouge she was desperate to be.

Clarke, discreetly, Googles to see if what just occurred was actually illegal.

She reads quickly and deletes her history before turning her phone off.

* * *

“No.”

Clarke stares at her door with a look akin to horror and searches through her sweats again. Besides her phone there is nothing in her pockets and she slumps against the door, her forehead hitting the wood.

She’s left her keys inside.

Her apartment door locks automatically and her keys are on the coffee table, exactly where she left them when Raven came over and after they bolted from the apartment when the alarms started screaming into the night.

From what she could tell Bellamy went away to drown his sorrows once the electrics were righted and she knows that Jackson who mans the desk has absolutely no access to spare keys. She doesn’t have Bellamy’s number to call him and asking Octavia would be pointless because Clarke is pretty sure she’s in the middle of performing and her phone will be forgotten.

“Seriously.”

She has no money in her pockets but Raven lives a twenty minute walk away and she resigns herself to walking through the city to her friends house to stay the night. A sigh leaves her lips and she pushes off of the door despondently, bracing herself for the cold journey, and turns to see her neighbour looking at her with a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“I don’t think that’s how doors work, Cheryl.”

Clarke growls because _who looks like that_ in the middle of the night. “Clarke,” she says, acid coating her tongue, and she glares at the woman in front of her. “My name is Clarke.”

“Oh, nice to meet you,” she says and there’s a sarcastic roll to her tone that knots deeply in Clarke’s stomach. “I’m Lexa. Glad we’ve finally introduced ourselves properly.”

“Whatever, I can’t deal with you tonight,” she spits because she’s embarrassed and kind of cold and Lexa looks like she’s stepped off of a runway and Clarke is pretty sure her hair fell out of it’s bun about four hours ago. “Can you move please?”

“You’re locked out?”

Clarke scoffs but it doesn’t have quite the same bite to it as it once did. “You’re observant.”

“I’m also a Gemini and I like my coffee black,” Lexa fires back, completely unperturbed by Clarke’s attitude, but her blase demeanour makes the girl smile regardless. “But I don’t think us learning new things about one another is going to give you a place to stay tonight, is it?”

At that Clarke looks up and it’s the first time she’s ever seen her neighbour look anything less than confident. “Are you offering?”

“My cousin is sleeping with Bellamy,” she explains and suddenly it makes sense why Bellamy is so easy-going about the parties in 7C and a sudden urge to punch him in his handsome face boils in her stomach. “They’re out for the night but I can message her and ask her to bring him back to get you a spare key. It won’t take them that long to get back. I think they’re at that Irish bar down the road.”

“I can just go to Raven’s. It’s not far,” Clarke shrugs, uncomfortable at the easy conversation she’s sharing with the girl. “And I’m sure you have a party to get back to.”

Lexa laughs but it doesn’t sound happy. “Oh yeah. With me, myself and I,” she gestures around her and Clarke feels a pang of sadness for the girl. She looks…

She looks lonely.

“Come in or don’t. I don’t care,” Lexa shrugs and she moves past Clarke to walk into her apartment. There’s a stubborn streak in both of them that Clarke can see from a mile away and it makes her smile a little. Maybe Octavia was right, maybe Lincoln saw something in Lexa nobody else could see and if there’s anyone in the world that Clarke trusted more than her father it was Lincoln. “But I wouldn’t be caught dead walking through New York at night looking like that, Chloe.”

“Clarke!”

* * *

Begrudgingly, Clarke has to admit that Lexa makes a pretty amazing cup of coffee. But--because she’s Clarke and that’s Lexa--she keeps her eyes narrowed as she drinks it and she pretends it’s just on the right side of ‘okay’.

The taste is like sex dripping down her throat though and _woah._

It really has been too long.

“Bellamy said he’ll come back as soon as they’ve finished,” Lexa informs her and she has no qualms about making herself comfortable in her own apartment, even if her clothes look entirely too tight and too formal. “He won’t be more than twenty minutes, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Clarke says because there isn’t really much else to talk about and she’s too scared to turn her phone on just in case the FBI work out that it was her and her best friend who nearly blew all the electrics in Blake Terrace.

Together they sit in relative silence for a short while, the only real noise coming from the soft sipping of coffee from warm cups, and it’s Lexa--because it always seems to be Lexa--who takes the initiative. “Do you think I’m an asshole?”

“I think you have asshole qualities,” Clarke replies and belatedly remembers a time when her dad told her that he was able to install anything in the world of electronics but he couldn’t install a simple filter into his daughter. “But you’re a Gemini, so.”

“Harsh,” Lexa murmurs but she’s smiling and it’s prettier than it should be. She’s tired, Clarke realises. They both are. “But seriously. Do you not like me?”

“You’re difficult to get to know,” she says after a long pause and Lexa nods like she’s working it out in her own mind. Like Clarke’s words matter. “Besides your music taste.I know that really well.”

Lexa looks like she wants to say something but she stops herself, her eyes darkening. Clarke watches as she wars with herself and she struggles to not calm her down or whisper something soothing. “That will end soon,” is all she says and it’s as cryptic and as mysterious as Lexa is.

“What do you mean?”

Lexa sighs and looks away but there’s only the two of them in the room and Bellamy never turns up when he says he will. They have time.

“Everybody grieves differently. This is Anya’s way of dealing with things,” she say and Clarke feels her heart stop and start again in the time it takes her to breathe. Of course. _Of course._ She’s not sure who the hell Anya is but it pieces together slowly and Clarke moves from where she is sitting at the table and sits next to Lexa on the white couch. “The louder the music is, the less she can hear her own thoughts.”

“Oh, Lexa,” Clarke starts and suddenly the barriers are up and Clarke chokes on the dust the bricks from the wall Lexa builds around herself.

“I know it’s frustrating and loud and obnoxious but just be patient, Clancy. Can you do that?”

She’s not offended by the name, not anymore, and not now she’s seen a little into Lexa’s world but it still tilts her world a little at how quickly Lexa managed to change. The subject is obviously a sore one, too new and painful to poke at, and Clarke accepts it’s the end of the conversation.

“Yeah,” she says softly and Lexa looks like she’s ready to bolt so she leaves it. “I don’t think you’re a total asshole, by the way. Your coffee making skills managed to redeem you.”

Lexa smiles at that, one that doesn’t particularly reach her eyes, but Clarke chalks it as a win. “I’ll take it.”

* * *

By the time Bellamy turns up Lexa has fallen asleep and Clarke says nothing to the confused look on the mans face.

She just leaves with a note on the table containing her number and a thank you.

She signs it Clarke four times.

**V.**

Things change and they absolutely stay the same.

Music still pours from Lexa’s apartment but it’s at a reasonable level and it always ends at an acceptable hour, usually before Clarke goes to bed. The number Clarke left for Lexa goes unused but she doesn’t regret giving it to her; she wants Lexa to know she’s just there, just on the other side of the wall, and she doesn’t know _why_ that’s an urge she has.

“Clarissa,” greets her once Clarke opens her door on a quiet Friday night and she blinks a few times, the bright light from the hallway blinding her a little from where she’d been hunched over her laptop working on an essay. “How are...Hello.”

Clarke frowns a little, mostly in confusion, but that seems to scare Lexa who backs off a little and shakes her head at herself. She can practically taste the defences Lexa is throwing up and she jumps in quickly, unsure of what is happening but not willing to let it end just yet. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m just --” Lexa clenches her fists at her sides and Clarke stands patiently, watching her. “My friends are out of town. It’s too quiet.”

Resisting the urge to tell Lexa to go out, or play music alone, or to put a movie on Clarke gestures into her apartment. “Do you want to come in?”

“No,” Lexa says and Clarke levels her breathing, trying to stay as soft as possible for the dazed girl in front of her. “Can we go out somewhere?”

“Where?”

“Away. Somewhere. I just -- Can you do that?”

It doesn’t take long for Clarke to agree and she knows next to nothing about Lexa---she still isn’t really sure if she even likes her---but she slips her shoes on and she’s out of the apartment in minute.

* * *

“We met when we were five,” Lexa tells her and Clarke folds her hands across her stomach, listening and absorbing all of the words that Lexa has to offer. “Our moms worked in the same office and there wasn’t really anyone to look after us so we’d sit in an empty office until they were finished and that’s how we became friends.”

“I am sorry, Lexa,” Clarke says because there isn’t much else to reply to that. What are you supposed to say? She watches her own feet as they walk the dirty sidewalk and Clarke hopes the traffic noise and people talking and the dim hum of music from restaurants and bars is enough to cloud Lexa’s mind. “I didn’t know him very long. He was a special man.”

She nods and they pause at a crossing, almost at the spot where Octavia took her to show her the large advertisement that held Lexa’s face, and Clarke jumps out of her skin when she feels a hand in hers. “I miss him so much, Clara.”

“Clarke.”

“Bless you.”

When Clarke turns to look at her, Lexa is smiling and it’s all Clarke can do not to press her lips to her cheek. If Lexa saying her name wrong is what brings a smile to those pretty lips and perfect eyes then Clarke is happy to forget her name even exists.

* * *

They end up in a diner and it’s almost two in the morning. There’s a guy serving who looks like he would rather be anywhere else in the world and besides an older man sitting in the corner, they’re alone. Outside the world continues to move by them, albeit at a quieter pace considering the time, but Clarke enjoys watching people nonetheless. Girls in party dresses stumble down the sidewalk and guys using each other to balance as they walk; she loves the city, the vibe, and she smiles to herself as she nurses a hot cup of coffee that doesn’t even begin to compare to the one Lexa can make.

And Lexa. Lexa is _nothing_ like Clarke expected.

She talks and she smiles and she’s animated. She’s everything that Clarke assumed she wasn’t as she listened to tinny music echo through their joined apartment wall and she wonders if she should apologise. Wonders, actually, what Lexa thought about her when they first met.

“You’re nothing like I expected and everything I thought,” Lexa murmurs and Clarke looks up before worrying she was tired enough that she spoke her thoughts out loud. “I always thought you hated me. Anya would always complain that you were at the door yelling about something and even though I never heard you I just assumed it. We would always laugh that you were an old soul in a young body and even though that’s a little true, you’re not who I thought you were.”

It’s not insulting and Clarke shrugs. “I get that a lot,” she admits and her mind falls back to Finn and the day he asked her if she even knew what fun was. Someone has to be responsible though and she’s taken the role easily, she simply slipped into it as everyone else settled into theirs.

“I’m sorry if I haven’t been the best neighbour recently,” she says softly and Clarke’s heart flutter. “Anya...After Lincoln…” She trails off and Clarke marvels at how nobody can actually say the words. It’s been over a year and nobody wants to admit it, not even when they visit the headstone, not even with tattoo dedications and lyrics on pages. “She coped by going out and it started getting dangerous. People take advantage of grief and I couldn’t let her do that anymore, I couldn’t lose anyone else. So I started inviting her to mine and she’d invite whoever she was best friends with that night but I didn’t mind because she was safe. Honestly, I didn’t care about anyone else. Including my neighbours.”

It’s hard to look at Lexa when she speaks because Clarke knows how difficult it is for the words to escape her mouth. But she keeps her eyes on the girl, taking in all of the little details, and she wets her lips slowly before she reaches across and lets her fingers brush against Lexa’s. The girl startles for a second but relaxes just as quickly, green eyes casting down as she watches their fingers play together.

“You’re a good person,” Clarke reminds her and the sigh Lexa releases sounds like she’s letting the weight of the world fall. “Remember that.”

Lexa opens her mouth to say something but the door rings as someone walks in and just like that the moment is over.

Clarke finds she doesn’t mind.

There’s a lot more moments in the future for them. She’s as sure of that as she is of her next breath.

* * *

After that night, Clarke and Lexa fall into a pattern. On the nights that Anya and her friends aren’t over, Lexa is at Clarke’s and it’s almost so natural that Clarke can’t quite remember an evening that wasn’t spent with the beauty.

Because Lexa is beautiful.

Like. Unreal beautiful.

And it wasn’t like Clarke didn’t see that before they started getting closer but now she sees Lexa in leggings and casual clothing, and without makeup or her defences up, she’s incredible. She isn’t afraid to admit it, or show it, and she knows that sometimes--maybe, hopefully, possibly--Lexa looks at her too.

She can’t read minds but she knows body language and she can see her lip bites and the smirks and how she grips her hands together instead of touching Clarke.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

Lexa looks up from her food--if one can call kale salad _food--_ and nods, her eyes bright and curious. She has her hair in a bun and she’s wearing an oversized jumper, the cuffs worn from years of love, and a tight pair of leggings that almost broke Clarke when she waltzed through her doorway unannounced.

Clarke pauses because _Jesus Christ --_ She’s amazing.

“Constance, you were saying?”

“Clarke.”

“You really need to get that checked out,” Lexa grins, like her humor is the best in the world, and Clarke rolls her eyes. “Tell me your big, bad secret.”

“Remember the night of the black out?”

Lexa smiles and nods and Clarke wonders what her memories of that night were. “I remember my entire apartment panicking because the lights went off, yes.”

“That was me.”

“What?”

It’s like a band-aid, Clarke decides. She just needs to rip it off and get it over with and say it. Because Lexa looks amused and confused all at the same time and she’s too much for Clarke to handle sometimes. “I -- My friend made something to turn your electrics off and now that I’m thinking about it that does seem kind of excessive but, I mean, it worked.”

“You what?”

“Yeah but then she messed something up, I don’t know what, and the entire block went out and now she thinks she’s wanted by the FBI.”

It’s quiet for all of ten seconds before Lexa starts laughing. Like genuinely laughing. And Clarke sits in wonder at the sound, at how melodic and sweet and _happy_ it sounds.

“You really are nothing like I thought you would be.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Lexa smiles at that, secretive and flirty, and she looks at Clarke from beneath her eyelashes. “Very good.”

* * *

That night Clarke falls asleep with a blush on her face and only one girl on her mind.

**FINALLY.**

It’s unexpected and completely expected when it happens and Clarke can do nothing but let Lexa press her against the wall with a hot mouth and desperate hands. The process rocks Clarke to her core and she grasps to hold on, overwhelmed and excited and wondrous by the taste flooding her mouth and the body pressed tightly against her own.

It’s a Wednesday night and usually Lexa’s apartment is quiet anyway. Her shift at the bookstore finished a little late and her feet were aching.

That’s all she really remembers.

Lexa was waiting for her as the elevator doors opened, nervous and unsure, and Clarke had approached her warily.

The first kiss was soft, gentle. _Perfect._

The second had her panting wantonly into Lexa’s mouth, uncaring about their neighbors or broken elevators or the fact Lexa looked like she had only just gotten home from a photo shoot.

“Is this okay?”

Lexa acknowledges the moment after a long minute of kissing down the column of Clarke’s neck and it takes the blonde four deep breaths to remember that she has a voice and there was a question and that Lexa is...A really, really, _really_ good kisser.

“You taste incredible.”

Lexa laughs and kisses her again. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

“Take me however you want.”

“Oh, I will,” Lexa promises and if Clarke can say anything about the girl it’s that she is a woman of her words.

* * *

 

They’re sweating and hot, sheets pooled around their waists, and Lexa has a handful of blonde hair twisted between long fingers when she says it but Clarke hears it loud and clear. It echoes around her heart and her mind and her body and she practically clenches at the sound.

“God, Clarke,” moans into her mouth and it’s almost too much. She shakes and Clarke wonders if it is too much. “Don’t stop. Make me come again.”

Clarke bites hard on her neck and the bruises she leaves are tomorrow's problem. Right now she just wants to _taste_ every part of Lexa and hear her again.

“Fuck, say it again,” Clarke pants and Lexa practically paints her nude body with a smirk.

“ _Clarke.”_

* * *

Lexa stays the night.

They have coffee in the morning and eat bagels like they were wild and shameless the night before. Lexa is completely ready when Clarke had stumbled out of the bedroom almost an hour after her and she watches as the brunette fires through emails, her lips balancing against the coffee cup.

“Are you working today?” Lexa asks and it sounds almost domestic. Almost.

“I have classes until four and then I’m at the store until ten,” she replies and Lexa pouts softly. “Why?”

“I’m at the studio until five and then I have to be in Brooklyn for an event this evening. Could you skip work and come with me?”

It’s casual and it doesn’t sound like a date but Clarke shakes her head anyway. A little space will help them and as much as she wants to cling to Lexa, to wrap herself around the woman, she knows one evening apart is probably the best option.

“I have to work,” she says and all of her previous plans go out of the window. “You can come here when you’ve finished if you want.”

“I want,” Lexa smiles. “If that’s okay?”

“Perfect.”

* * *

Lexa leaves first and Clarke is putting her backpack on her shoulders when loud laughter echoes back into her apartment. In the doorway Lexa stands laughing and Clarke raises an eyebrow, walking over to the giggling woman, and approaching slowly like she could be going crazy.

“What?”

Lexa raises a note and Clarke frowns a little at the sticky residue on her door before she turns her attention to the small pink piece of paper.

_“We appreciate you’re having a good time with one another_

_and you're having fun_ _but if you could keep the noise down_

_t_ _o a dull roar next time_ _you hook up it’d be_

_appreciated by the entire floor._

_Thanks. 7A.”_

“I’m just glad I’m no longer the asshole neighbour, Courtney.”

Lexa smirks as she lets Clarke move out of the door into the hallway too but Clarke focuses on one thing and one thing only.

“I knew I was fun.”

 


End file.
